I had to take a local film crew to North Mississippi Regional Park again to see the heron rookerly. Since leaf out is so early (this is the first time since I’ve lived in Minnesota that I have seen lilacs blooming in April) I was curious how much of the rookery was still visible. Here’s [ Read More ]
This is the week to check out the great blue heron rookery at North Mississippi Regional Park (or the one at Coon Rapids Dam too). I headed out to the North Mississippi rookery yesterday to take a look, right now the nests are very visible–even without binoculars. You can get a great view [ Read More ]
Tuesday was one of the coolest days of my life as a birder and park ranger! I was one of the judges for the Minnesota Jr. Duck Stamp competition. This wasn’t the final judging for the Jr. Duck Stamp, our Best In Show entry is entered into the final round and I think it stands [ Read More ]
Tuesday morning I’m heading over to the Burnsville Civic Center as a judge for the Junior Duck Stamp Contest. I had grand schemes of Twittering during the event, but I was reading over my rules as a judge and there will be no Twittering! Check them out: Must have cell phones off throughout the judging [ Read More ]
It’s an oddly exciting day at the National Park I work for (Mississippi National River and Recreation Area)–the river is flooding and it’s odd to be excited by the flood and watch what the water will do. Since our visitor center is based in the Science Museum lobbby, we’re right on the Mississippi River in [ Read More ]
Last Saturday I helped out with the St. Paul Christmas Bird Count. I love the above photo, that’s two of our team members standing on the frozen Mississippi River counting ducks with the downtown St. Paul skyline behind them. My original intent was to just be part of a team, but St. Paul Audubon needed [ Read More ]
Winter got a tad aggressive last week. It’s been weird, we had snow in early October, so I was prepared for six months of cold and snow. Then it got strangely warm for the rest of October and November and thought, “Terrific, maybe winter won’t be so bad!” Then out of nowhere, we went from [ Read More ]
A sample of waterfowl at Point Douglas right now.
Now let’s talk about some of the more challenging ducks on our aerial waterfowl surveys! Are you ready for some hardcore duck id fun! Sure you are! I placed this photo in my last blog entry about aerial waterfowl identification and asked if anyone could identify them and somebody did! Believe it or not, these [ Read More ]
Doing aerial waterfowl surveys is hard work. It’s a lot like shorebird identification, you can’t just rely on colors, it’s more general size, shape and impression–that’s right giss birding! I’m told that the hard part for many on these surveys is not getting motion sick in the plane. I can’t imagine being motion sick and [ Read More ]
